


Summer Meetings

by fenellaevangela



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom (background pairing), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6604897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/pseuds/fenellaevangela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Longbottom returns from his summer holiday to find an unusual stranger spending time in his greenhouses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Meetings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallbrownfrog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallbrownfrog/gifts).



Neville could feel the summer waning, although it wasn’t yet autumn by the calendar. Even so, the warm sunlight wasn’t _quite_ warm enough to disguise the oncoming chill in the air as Neville walked the distance from the castle to the nearest greenhouse. It was a walk he had taken hundreds of times during his years as a Hogwarts student, and thousands more since taking on the mantle of Herbology professor for himself – sometimes in fairer weather and sometimes in far worse. (The promise of cooler days to come certainly held nothing to a mid-winter gale, after all!) But even with the path beneath his feet so familiar he could walk it blindfolded, he still felt a little thrill of anticipation. There was always something special about the first trip back to the greenhouses after a time away, and he was excited to get back and examine his charges, ensure they had been cared for _properly_ in his absence. 

(The headmistress had of course assured him he had nothing to worry about before shooing him and Hannah off on their holidays, but there was a small part of Neville that knew the plants preferred his green thumb to any other.)

The early morning sun was reflecting off the greenhouse glass as Neville approached, which was why he didn’t notice the figure looming inside until he had already unlatched the door and stepped into the humid room. Compared to the crispness of the late summer morning, the air inside the greenhouse was thick and heavy, and Neville eased into it like he would a warm bath. He took a deep breath of the rich scent of moist soil and healthy plants - _his_ plants, which was always all the better – and was just starting to feel the tension of being away bleed out of his shoulders when something moved in the corner of his eye. 

“Hullo?” Neville called, holding his wand high up in front of him. He expected the movement was nothing but a pest or a draft from him closing the door, but he would rather be prepared than not – and if it was a pest, there would be no one there to see him almost stun the puffapods.

It wasn’t a pest.

When the movement happened again, Neville was staring right at it. He watched as the leaves of the potted shrivelfig trees in the corner rustled as if blown by a breeze that wasn’t there - and then, a moment later, he suppressed a look of surprise as a tall man blinked into existence next to them. Some sort of invisibility charm, then. He’d been trying to hide.

The man held his hands up placatingly, no wand in sight as Neville approached him. Neville kept his up. 

“My apologies,” the stranger said. “I merely hoped to avoid disturbing you. I mean no harm.”

“And who are you, then?”

“My name is Loki. I’m a . . . guest,” he said, and before Neville could object that he _wasn’t_ any sort of guest of Neville’s, and therefore had no business nosing around in Neville’s workspace, he continued: “Of the _headmistress_. You can ask her; I promise she will tell you as much.”

“Hmph,” Neville said. It seemed plausible enough. “How did you get in here? Only staff can open the door when classes are out.”

The stranger lifted his eyebrows, his face the picture of innocence. “Why, magic, of course.” 

Neville gripped his wand tighter. “Don’t be cheeky.”

“The headmistress granted me access,” Loki explained. And was he _rolling his eyes_? “I’ve been tending the plants for the last few weeks, I assume while you’ve been away? Someone must, you know.”

“Fine,” Neville said. “I’ll ask the headmistress – you just stay here.”

The man – Loki – waved him away as Neville retreated back to the doorway so he could communicate with the headmistress away from prying eyes. She seemed surprised to hear that Loki had been in the greenhouses when Neville arrived and apologized - she would, she assured Neville, have mentioned him if she knew they were going to meet before dinner like she had intended. He was relieved to find out that whoever Loki was, he _had_ been the one caring for the greenhouses while Neville and Hannah were on holiday, although the headmistress was short on details in a way Neville had grown to understand meant that there was something more for him to know once they were in a time and place to discuss it properly. He just hoped it wasn’t anything too serious – Hogwarts did have a reputation for employing some unusual individuals, after all.

Storing his wand away, Neville turned back to his unexpected visitor only to find that the man had moved away from the shrivelfigs and was now leaning over Neville’s batch of bubotuber plants.

“Hey now,” said Neville, his eyes going wide. “You shouldn’t be handling those without dragon-hide gloves – stop –!”

Neville lurched forward, realizing at the last moment that he hadn’t had time to put on his own dragon-hide gloves; they were still lying on his workbench at the front of the greenhouse where he had left them the afternoon before his holidays. He reached instead for his wand and had a disarming charm on the tip of his tongue when he noticed that he was too late. Some of the bubotuber pustules had popped, expelling their thick pus all over Loki’s bare hand. 

Neville winced in sympathy and cast a quick _scourgify_ instead, vanishing the pus from the other man’s hand. He was surprised to see, however, that the skin underneath didn’t appear to be blistered or sore at all.

“Are you . . . all right?” Neville asked, moving in closer for a better look. He found himself reaching out and taking other man’s hand, turning it over and brushing his fingers across Loki’s palm. Even up close, Loki’s skin appeared completely normal and unblemished – impossibly so. “The bubotuber pus usually leaves a terrible rash. I don’t understand what happened; I’ve had students recovering with Hannah for a week after getting that much pus on them.”

Loki tugged his hand free, brusquely though not ungently. “I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”

And what exactly did that mean, Neville wondered, his suspicions rising. Crossing his arms, he gave Loki an assessing look. 

“The only person I’ve seen who can stand undiluted bubotuber pus was half giant,” he said, an edge of challenge in his voice.

A shadow fell over the other man’s features and Neville realized he had hit the mark, but that he had also stepped over a line. He felt a wave of regret and mentally kicked himself, wishing the two of them hadn’t stumbled onto each other this way. The headmistress was going to be less than impressed to hear that Neville had managed to insult her guest, especially less than five minutes after she had told him that the man had every right to be there, alone in the place where Neville worked. So when Loki turned towards the door Neville reached out and grabbed his elbow, causing the other man to stop abruptly.

“Hey now – look,” Neville started. “I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s fine if you’re half giant – and it’s fine if it’s none of my business. I’m just not used to strangers showing up here and I was . . . suspicious, I guess. I’m sorry, all right? Can we start over?”

Loki turned back towards Neville but said nothing, just looked down towards the place where Neville’s hand still held his elbow firmly. Neville dropped the grip and Loki finally looked up, although he didn’t step away. Neville was suddenly hyper aware that there was only a hair’s breadth between them – Loki’s eyes, he noticed for the first time, were green. If Neville wasn’t trying his very hardest to think the best of the other man, he would be sure that there was a look of mischief there.

“Your apology is accepted, Professor, but I think I have a condition.” Loki raised his eyebrows in question. “If that’s all right with you, of course.”

“What sort of condition?” asked Neville, wary.

Loki reached up between them and rested his hand on Neville’s chest.

“I’ve been taking the opportunity to help myself to a few supplies from your greenhouses – ah,” he said, noticing Neville about to object. “This is _your_ apology, remember? Now that the greenhouses are back under your supervision, I’d like to keep doing so.”

Neville licked his lips. “What, um, what sort of supplies? What are you using them for?”

“Nothing untoward, I assure you,” Loki said – not assuring Neville at all, not with that tone of voice. 

“I’m – not sure I should.”

Neville was realizing that he had completely lost control of the situation. Did the headmistress know what kind of man she had hired – would she have warned Neville about this, had she had the time? The other man then leaned even closer into Neville’s personal space, his breath ghosting over Neville’s lips, and Neville wondered if things were about to get really, really bad – or good.

“Perhaps we can . . . get to know each other better,” Loki suggested. “And you might change your mind?”

Neville swallowed. Hannah wasn't going to believe him when he told her about this. “If you promise it’s nothing Dark then we could – try that. I suppose.”

He got a brief glimpse of Loki’s sharp grin before he pressed ever so infinitesimally closer and kissed him. It was a harsh kiss - more teeth than Neville liked, for one thing - but it was exhilarating. He wrapped his arms around the other man and kissed back.

If Loki turned out to be evil, Neville was never going to hear the end of this.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this pairing might not be one you expected for your prompt, but I was inspired. We know that Neville takes over the Herbology position at Hogwarts at least by 2017 and he was probably there for a few years before that - [according to the _Harry Potter_ wiki](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Hannah_Abbott#Later_life_.281998-2014.29), Hannah was already training to work in the Hogwarts infirmary by 2014. If Loki were to show up at Hogwarts right now, many of the characters we love from the books would have moved on, but these two would still be around!


End file.
